Chapter 311

“Explain,” I said, sharper than intended.

It was strange. I should have been thrilled, ecstatic, even. Instead, I felt oddly protective of Miles, irritated by the implication of corruption alone.

“Relax.” Jackson rolled his eyes, misreading my reaction. “Dirty cops can be bought, bargained with. It’s better than the alternative.”

“How are you getting—where are you getting that?”

Jackson looked down at the pile, examining his conclusions with scrutiny. “Big picture shit. But it’s all there in the career path. What we have, anyway. There’s not a lot pre-FBI.”

My curiosity won out. “I’m surprised he kept records here.”

“He didn’t.” Jackson shook his head. “Probably does the smart thing and keeps official documentation off-site. What I have is training manuals, articles, shit he was reading, more than half of it dated. It helps that the guy is sentimental. Joe-schmo-blue emails thanking him for his help, he prints it out and sticks it in there.” He pointed to a leather file holder, stuffed full of paper.

I picked it up, somehow still surprised at the heft. “Okay. Walk me through it.”

“Right.” Jackson stood, inclining his head towards the pile on the left. “A lot of feds—the action guys—start in a small field office. But not our boy. They jumped him in hot. Joined a drug unit covering the Fort Worth area in the early aughts. There’s nothing that spells out what he was doing, exactly, but the bastard got promoted stupid quick for someone who already had a leg-up to begin with.” Jackson paused, testing me. “You get what that means?”

“Undercover.” I filled in, immediately frowning at the chronology. “But he’d arguably be under more scrutiny in that role. Drug tests, monitoring his bank accounts. If he came across as sketchy, there wouldn’t have been a promotion. They would have just removed him from fieldwork and chained him to a desk.” Not to mention, he was undercover when I met him. And judging from the beef he has with Roderick, probably before I met him.

“We’re not there yet. Up to this point, I’m guessing it was all above board. The Fort Worth AIC sucked him off, slapped his ass, and sent him off with sterling commendation to a money laundering and domestic-terrorism unit. Which he must have hated, because despite being a comparatively cushy gig, he dipped.”

I asked the natural question. “To where?”

Jackson spread his arms. “Good question. Unfortunately, that’s where the bread crumbs stop. No correspondence of any kind, no accolades, no manuals. Spanning a period of almost two years.” He stepped carefully through the mounds of paper and crouched down, almost obsessively following the trail. “Almost like he was fired. Only, a fired agent doesn’t suddenly pop back up after a multi-year absence and suddenly find himself in the violent crime division, focusing on serial cases.”

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“Shit.” I looked over some of the paperwork, finding it more or less pointed to the same conclusions. “So that’s… gotta be international, right? CIA?”

“Or NSA. Or some other extra-alphabet group, working overtime without oversight. It’s anyone’s guess.” Jackson shrugged. “But the typical fed daydreams about joining the behavioral unit the way teenage boys fantasize about anything with a pulse. It’s highly coveted, and even more competitive. The only way they’d stick him there so easily is if he pulled off a minor miracle, doing whatever he was doing.”